VI. Becoming a `Bloke'

Abstract

This article uses conversation analysis (CA) on a single case study (a call to a helpline for women with symphysis pubis dysfunction) to explore how, and why, a speaker produces a non-present third person she has earlier referred to using a non-gendered term (`your partner') as a member of a gendered category (`a bloke') — and why she later seeks to undo this categorization. This contributes to (feminist) CA an understanding of how gender is constructed in talk-in-interaction and, more generally, to understandings of membership categorization and person reference.